Court okays ‘tag team’ approach to circulating nominating petitions
Barbara S. Miller/Observer-Reporter
Washington Republican mayoral hopeful Mark Kennison leaves Washington County Courthouse after listening to legal arguments on the circulation of a nominating petition.
Barbara S. Miller/Observer-Reporter
Catherine Strope was prepared to testify Tuesday in Washington County Court about her challenge to the nominating petitions of Republican Mark Kennison. With her is her son-in-law, Washington Mayor Scott Putnam, a Democrat who is seeking a second term.
What attorney Lane Turturice called the “tag team” approach of circulating a single nominating petition was valid, Washington County President Judge Katherine Emery ruled Thursday afternoon.
Mark Kennison Sr. and his son, Washington Republican mayoral candidate Mark Kennison Jr., worked together gathering signatures, sometimes as close as arm’s length and only as far away as two or three houses.
Only the name of Kennison Jr. appeared in an affidavit attesting to the authenticity of those who signed.
Neither side called witnesses to testify Tuesday afternoon at the proceeding, initiated at the request of Republican voter Catherine Strope, the mother-in-law of incumbent Democratic Mayor Scott Putnam.
Relying on a 1976 case dealing with a Congressional candidate named DeFino in Fayette County that Turturice brought to the court’s attention, Emery also quoted it.
“Although it would be preferable for the individual who has actually circulated the petition to make the required affidavit, it is not specifically required by the Election Code,” she noted.
Attorney Steven Toprani, presenting Strope’s challenge, cited case law from the state Supreme Court ruling on appellate court hopeful Mary Flaherty, contending that Kennison Jr. needed to witness each signature.
Although “it seems obvious that the signer must be in the presence of the circulator … in order for him or her to attest that the signer knew what he or she was signing, such is not the law of the Commonwealth,” Emery wrote.
As in a previous challenge to Democratic Clerk of Courts candidate, Emery wrote that “the Election Code must be liberally construed so as not to deprive an individual of his or her right to run for office or deprive voters of their right to elect candidates of their choosing.”
Each side in the Kennison matter agreed that 22 names on seven nominating petitions should be stricken for various reasons, so if the judge had disqualified the “tag team” petition in question bearing 44 signatures, Kennison Jr. would have lacked the 100 required signatures needed to appear on the GOP ballot.
Putnam, a Democrat, challenged incumbent Washington Democratic Mayor Brenda Davis in 2015, and defeated her. No Republican filed on the Republican ballot that year, so both Democrats conducted write-in campaigns to set up a possible contest in the fall.
Putnam, however, also prevailed in the GOP write-in and ran without opposition in the general election.